PSEG beautifies Long Beach for Earth Week

Posted
Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:17 pm

Long Beach resident and PSEG employee Terry Blackburn worked with his colleague, Leighann Thomas, to beautify the median of Long Beach Boulevard as part of PSEG Long Island’s Earth Week activities on Tuesday.

Courtesy PSEG Long Island

By Bridget Downes

With Earth Day approaching on April 22, PSEG Long Island visited Long Beach Tuesday to beautify the city’s entrances and encourage residents to use energy-efficient power.

Nearly a hundred PSEG employees came together to plant flowers and trees, give away reusable shopping bags and wildflower seeds at the local Key Food and Stop & Shop, offer free energy assessments to small businesses and give away 2,000 free LED light bulbs outside City Hall. PSEG officials said the assessments aimed to encourage business owners to install more efficient lighting to save energy and money.

“I volunteered to be part of PSEG Long Island’s Earth Week activities because I’m both a longtime employee and a resident of Long Beach,” Terry Blackburn, who spent the day beautifying the median along Long Beach Boulevard, said in a statement. “I planted trees, shrubs and plants to help beautify the entrances to Long Beach.”

Between 8 a.m. and around 2 p.m., a team of employee volunteers made improvements to three roadway medians, including Long Beach and Austin boulevards, Maple and Lido boulevards, and Nevada and Beech streets.

“The city of Long Beach has been through a lot,” Emily Calamari, a Long Beach resident and PSEG employee who spent the day handing out LED bulbs, said in a statement. “It’s great to be able to help my community and the earth at the same time.”

Throughout the week — deemed “Earth Week” by many — hundreds of PSEG Long Island volunteers will work in five towns across Long Island as part of a large-scale effort to make public spaces greener, help residential customers use less energy, and help small businesses find new ways to save on more efficient lighting, PSEG officials said. Events are also scheduled in Oyster Bay, Huntington, Brookhaven and Islip.

“The city sincerely appreciates PSEG Long Island storm hardening the electrical system to provide more reliable service for our residents,” Long Beach City Council President Anthony Eramo said in a statement. “This administration is always working on environmentally friendly initiatives that reduce our city’s carbon footprint.”

“PSEG Long Island is not just committed to a greener energy future, but a more sustainable and environmentally friendly Long Island,” Andrea Elder-Howell, PSEG Long Island vice president of legal services, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We’re leading the way in New York with our solar projects, and soon we’ll be buying and providing carbon-free offshore wind power for Long Island. … In recognition of Earth Day, we are proud to make a pledge today to distribute 1 million shopping bags to our customers by Earth Day 2020 through our ongoing outreach efforts,” Elder-Howell said. “Using reusable bags helps to stop the damage to the environment from single-use plastic bags.”